Tales of a Wizard: Passing Connections
by Applechip
Summary: This story is a sequel to my Tales of a Wizard: Flesh Masks. This is a collection of short stories meant to update the world of Flesh Masks with the more recent events in My Little Pony, and their first steps into the Nevernever, before the proper sequel to Flesh Masks.
1. Chaotic Interference

**Chaotic Interference**

Chaos is a natural force that permeates throughout every fiber of reality. The strongest of castles crumble to pebbles under chaotic influence, the grandest of events are eventually lost to only vague memories, and normally peaceful individuals can be roused into great riots. But why, in the name of all that is good and just, why is a genuine deity of chaos on a first name basis with MY friends?!

"Nope," I stated as though my simple refusal could change the newest bit of madness that had been heaped on my plate. My wiry black mane and long ashen grey ears flopped in and out of my field of view as I shook my head back and forth. "Nope, no, no, nope, no. I do not like any part of this."

"Don't worry, Harry," whispered a soothing motherly tone from somewhere off to my right. "He really is a sweetheart when you get to know him."

Fluttershy calmly strode across the living room of her cottage, balancing a tea set on her outstretched wings. Her heavily patched field medic uniform lay hung on a hook beside the front door next to a collection of heavy winter coats, leaving Fluttershy's slightly frazzled yellow coat and pink mane free for all to see.

On the other side of the room and stretched across Fluttershy's green cushioned couch, lay a creature unlike any other I had ever seen. He had a several foot long serpentine-esque body that dwarfed even the demi-goddess Celestia for height. His limbs were a horrible amalgamation of various animals that warped my mind just by looking at him. I've had creatures of similar levels of disturbing try to eat my face, and this one was offering me a warm little smile.

"Oh come now, Mr. Dresden," the creature calling itself Discord chuckled as our host deposited her tea on the nearby coffee table. "I assure you I mean neither you nor your precious friends any harm. I have been rather gloriously redeemed, by my dearest of friends."

Directly to my right another, albeit more condescending, feminine voice muttered, "'Dearest of friends' might be a bit of a stretch."

Twilight Sparkle and I stood side by side in the entrance to Fluttershy's home. Like the yellow Pegasus, we both decided to forgo our protective spell layered overcoats and embraced the day with only our fur. Twilight's bright lavender coat offset my own ashen grey fur well, with both of our manes and tails slipping into darker versions of our respective coat colors. The only real thing that stood out as particularly odd about us, were the pair of grey feathered wings folded tight against my sides. While gifts from an amalgamation of vengeful spirits, the wings instinctively tried to make themselves as flush as possible against my fur, as though trying to escape notice from wayward eyes.

"Twilight!" Fluttershy actually snapped at her friend and shot her a harsh expression. "He is trying to be a kind pony, and that alone means we should be encouraging him." Fluttershy dropped her aggressive stance and returned to pouring tea with her hooves. "Also don't forget that Celestia herself sent him to help us."

Twilight brought a purple hoof up to her head and massaged her temple with a slight groan. "I know and I'm sorry, Fluttershy, Discord. This is just going to take a little getting used to."

"Well I'm not sorry!" I barked and continued to glare daggers at the draconequus happily stretching across Fluttershy's couch. "I've spent the last couple of days establishing a post in the Nevernever, and now I come back to find one of my friends' worst enemies just hanging out. What the heck happened while I was gone?!"

"Soooo many wondrous things my newest and grumpiest of alicorns," Discord cried out while stretching out his talons, claws, and single cloven hoof up in the air. After a short moment he let out an exhausted yawn and dropped his limbs to curl up into a demented little ball, all while keeping a quirked eye trained on me. "Which, by the way, how'd you manage to pull that off? You don't really seem to have the same aimless kindness Celestia usually seeks to reward."

"Isn't this the guy that messed with your head, with all of your heads?" I shouted while glancing fervently between Twilight and Fluttershy, completely ignoring Discord's question. "From what you all told me, I kind of figured that he would be in a pigeon roost in Canterlot for the rest of his very long life."

"Ouch," the draconequus chuckled with a mock expression of shock. "Words can hurt you know."

Twilight let out a short sigh and took a few steps further into Fluttershy's cottage before finding a cushion near the same coffee table the yellow pegasus was busily setting for company. Mere moments after Twilight sat at the table, a cup of tea appeared before her, followed swiftly by two more for Fluttershy, Discord, and a third placed at an empty spot for me.

"It really is alright, Harry," Twilight muttered while gesturing a foreleg to join them all at the table. "A few days ago after you left into the Nevernever, Celestia herself showed up here in town with Discord."

"She wanted us to try and rehabilitate him, to befriend him," Fluttershy added with a warm smile for the draconequus, which he returned. "I believe Celestia felt that Discord might be helpful to all of us in the near future."

Twilight smiled and nodded in agreement, "The Princess has always had good intuition into what a pony can become." The lavender unicorn hesitated for a moment before sheepishly rubbing her the hooves of her forelegs together. "Though I will admit, my first instinct upon seeing you was to make you into a lawn ornament. No offense, Discord."

"None taken, Twilight, none taken at all," Discord chirped before taking a sip of his tea and adjusting a monocle that certainly had not been there seconds before. "I daresay my dear old dad used to do the same thing back in the day."

My head, already at a decent level of frustration induced pain, just about tipped into a full blown migraine by all the knowledge being tossed around, forcing me to rapidly process ideas I'm much happier letting fester in my subconscious. I cautiously stepped forward and took my seat in-between Twilight and Fluttershy, and opposite from Discord. The tea in my cup almost immediately went down my throat in the vain hopes that the small amount of caffeine therein would help my headache.

"You wrapped your claws around my friends' minds and twisted them to suit your needs once," I said after a short pause and with a carefully neutral mask over my face. "I'm also betting that wasn't the first time you've done something similar. Everything I know about magic tells me that your spells should have corrupted you and turned you into an incomprehensible madman driven only by power, yet Fluttershy claims this isn't true." My attention shifted from the God of Chaos over to Twilight. "You told me a while back that you used the Elements of Harmony on Discord before. Did they restore his mind like they did to Princess Luna?"

Twilight's eyes darted around inside her head slightly as she processed my question. "Well, yes we did," she answered, her voice thick with uncertainty, "but I'm not entirely certain if-"

"If the Elements had any actual effect on my thoughts, which they haven't," Discord interjected, drawing our eyes back to him. Discord only chuckled at the mares' shocked expressions and my own patented death glare. "The words 'corrupted' and 'restored' imply that my mind has been altered in some way."

Without a single word of explanation or preparation, Discord's paw shot up in a blur of motion that ended with his digits wrapped around one of his twisted horns. With a smooth wrenching motion, Discord pulled hard on his horn and the top of his head simply popped open like a trashcan lid. Each pony at the table, myself included, blanched at the sight and tried to turn our heads slightly so that the draconequus was in our peripheral view rather than under direct scrutiny. While he used his lion's paw to hold open his head, Discord's talon of a right hand reached up and began fumbling around in his own head.

"Ah here we are," Discord chuckled and then removed his hand from the inside of his skull, bringing a bizarre mass of some tissue along with it.

Discord's brain looked structurally similar to what I would expect from such an organ, it had two distinct lobes that stuck to each other and a long cord beneath it that ran back to the God of Chaos' still open skull. The only odd thing was that the surface of the brain was a swirling mixture of black and pink tissue. My magical senses almost immediately picked up on the energy radiating from the thing, and I was faced with very odd finding. The brain was corrupted by dark magic, but the corruption I felt wasn't inherently destructive. In fact the corruption seemed to work in tandem with the non-corrupted energy towards the betterment of the whole. Such an entity was the next best thing genuine alien physiology, though considering the source, alien was pretty accurate.

Discord smiled at our disgusted reactions, turned the brain in his talons to inspect it more closely, and idly picked away a few stray hairs that had fallen on it. "See, my brain is the same as it's always been. It has withstood dark magic, the Elements of Harmony, and several millennia of insanity. If that hasn't broken it, nothing will."

"That's great and all, Discord, but please put that thing away!" Twilight cried while decidedly looking at anything but the draconequus. "We're trying to have some tea!"

Discord shrugged and tossed the squishy mas back up into his open cranium before it slammed shut and seamlessly sealed itself again. "I would have thought you more than anypony would appreciate some decent grey matter, Twilight."

"My newest nightmare fuel aside," I said with my grey foreleg trying its very best to shield my eyes from Discord's freshly sealed skull, "How is this supposed to prove to me your good will? What's to stop you from turning right around falling back in old habits?"

"And betray dear old Fluttershy's trust?!" The Pegasus in question let out a short squeak as she simply disappeared from her seat and reappeared in the air directly in front of Discord, shortly before he seized her and hugged her to his chest. "I'd sooner turn myself inside out, and I can tell you from experience, that's not too pleasant."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room after those words, if only just because we were too shaken by the mental imagery. Fluttershy in particular appeared to try and curl in on herself even as Discord straightened out a stray hair in her pink mane. Honestly, if half of what I'd heard about him was true, I wouldn't have put it past him to horribly maim himself out of simple curiosity.

"It's… I just…" I finally babbled out through grinding teeth. After a few more choice stammers, I let out a defeated sigh and sunk back into my seat with my head dropping down to rest on the table. "Nothing you say makes any sense to me."

"He really is alright, Harry," Fluttershy piped up from behind Discord's paw and talon. "Are you okay though? You seem agitated, moreso than usual I mean."

"Yes, of course!" Discord cried out and pointed a claw high into the air, dropping Fluttershy with a soft _wumpf_.

My vision was suddenly obscured by a comically large dust cloud that spanned the entire room. Several small pops sounded off and I became acutely aware that I was no longer sitting on the small pouf I'd been given, but a much larger cushioned surface. My magic senses instinctively reached out to probe my surroundings, and while I could definitely detect the presence of an otherworldly force moving about, it seemed to detect my prodding and worked its weave to evade my senses.

As suddenly as it came, the cloud dissipated and I found myself stretched across the couch Discord had previously occupied. Fluttershy had been transported across the coffee table and sat on the same pouf I was sitting on. Discord, sporting a freshly made tweed jacket and holding a pen and notebook in his hands, sat in a large armchair beside Fluttershy.

"So, Mr. Dresden, do tell me what has been troubling you dear boy. We're all here to listen." Discord chirped and began scribbling in his notebook; beside him, both Fluttershy and Twilight looked at me expectantly. The whole situation was disturbingly similar to being analyzed in a psychiatrist's office.

"It's nothing too serious," I commented after a short pause. "The guardsponies and I just ran into a bit of an issue in the Nevernever. In actuality we managed to make first contact with the White Council in Equestrian territory."

"WHAT!?" Twilight shouted and slammed her forelegs down onto the coffee table. "Why wasn't I told about this? The diplomats that came back said that the White Council promised they wouldn't be making a formal appearance until next week! The Princess wanted us all to be there to make a good first impression!"

"Hmmm," Discord hummed and tapped his pen against his chin. "This White Council, the girls mentioned it to me earlier. They're some group of spell weavers correct?"

"My former employers, yes. They're a group founded on a noble goal, but with less than noble practices." I quirked an eyebrow in Discord's general direction, "You'd probably have fun with them."

"I have fun wherever I go!" the draconequus barked through a short laugh.

"Of course you do." I let out a short grunt and turned my attention back over to Twilight and Fluttershy. "Anyway, technically speaking, the White Council has held true to its promise. The members they sent weren't a part of a diplomatic escort."

"Then what were they here for?" Twilight questioned. "Were they scouts or something?"

A wide grin stretched across my muzzle and I let out a long rolling chuckle. "'Or something', I would say. They spotted the outpost the guardsponies and I were building, very politely introduced themselves as Wardens of the White Council, and then requested to meet with the highest ranking pony available."

"What did they say?" Fluttershy squeaked from her position ever so slightly beneath the coffee table.

My smile got a little wider before I attempted to put on a straight face and did my best to imitate a person who gargles gravel on a regular basis. "'Excuse me sir, but we believe that you are harboring a dangerous warlock by the name of, Harry Dresden. I'm sure you're not aware of the risk he poses, but it is our duty to secure him and return him to the White Council before he causes you or your people any harm."

Around halfway through my imitation, both Twilight and Fluttershy adopted widely different opinions on their very first, if indirect, contact with the White Council. Fluttershy's eyes popped up over the table and just stared at me as though she couldn't quite believe what she had just heard. Twilight was purely and simply furious. The lavender mare's face slowly turned to a dark red as she fought to spit out whatever colorful words were flowing through her head, but were unfortunately stuck somewhere in her throat.

"Hahahaha, oh wow, that's good!" Discord shouted into the spacious living room, snapping all eyes back to the serpentine entity. He spent a few more seconds giggling to himself like a madman before whipping a joyous tear from his eye. "Oh irony, my favorite form of everything. Please tell me you kept the rouse going on for as long as possible."

My opinion of him improved slightly as I shot Discord the first genuine smile he'd earned from me. "Against my better judgment, no unfortunately. One of my guards overheard the warden and spilled the beans before I could mess with them too much."

Discord slumped down in his chair a bit at that and pouted, "Awww, those guards never could just enjoy a good laugh."

"Nevermind that," Twilight shoved her way into the conversation. "They didn't try to take you did they?"

I sighed and shook my head slightly, "It was definitely on some of their minds, but no they didn't try. The Wardens may be fairly gung ho in enforcing the White Council's laws, but they wouldn't dare risk a political catastrophe over one person. In all likelihood, this was merely them confirming what Celestia's diplomats told them about me. The group just spent some time restocking some supplies and then left, most likely to report back."

Twilight visibly relaxed and planted her rump back down in her cushion, her cup of tea, seemingly forgotten, floated up to meet her. While not necessarily happy with the news, she did at least seem content that weren't already at war with another supernatural power. Beside her, Fluttershy likewise perked up at the news and offered me a small smile.

"Well that's good I suppose," Fluttershy whispered only barely loud enough for us all to hear. "Were they nice when they weren't accusing you of being a warlock?"

"Nicer than they ever treated me when I was one of their own," I responded back with small chuckle. "It might have something to do with my new political position, but I like to think it's because I am significantly fluffier than the last time I've seen a warden." The hoof of my right foreleg reached up to stroke my chin quizzically, "It felt extremely weird. I never thought I'd say it, but I actually kind of miss the paranoia of watching every little corner for one of the Warden's signature grey cloaks. It kept me sharp at the very least."

"Oh well if that's all you want," Discord finally spoke up and reached out a cruel looking talon towards me, "I'd be happy to help. One pretty little light show and I can make you as paranoid as you want!"

"If you think for one second that I'm just going to let you into my mind…" I growled, my muscles automatically tensing as my fight or flight instinct kicked in.

The self-proclaimed God of Chaos reared his head back and let out a bellowing cackle. "Oh Harry, please don't mistake me for some petty demon or spirit looking to make a deal."

Discord's back straightened to lift him higher and his head lowered until he was glaring down at me from above, completely dwarfing any pony I had ever seen for sheer height. His fanged smile and glaring eyes brought to mind a king cobra eyeing its prey.

"I don't need your permission to reach into your mind," slithered from Discord's fanged mouth.

Almost immediately the room became blanketed in bright crimson and purple energies as both Twilight and I ignited our respective horns. Twilight moved forward so that she was halfway standing on the coffee table while I simply stood up on the couch, my wings automatically flaring out slightly to make me appear larger than I was. Fluttershy, bless her heart, didn't offer any kind of directly hostile action, but instead just glared at Discord exactly how you would expect a mother would to her misbehaving child.

Discord who at least seemed to realize that he'd said something wrong, glimpsed between Twilight and I with a look of supreme confusion on his mismatched face. It wasn't until he looked around to Fluttershy beside him that he finally came to the realization of what he just said.

"But of course I would never do that to you guys," Discord cried through a clearly fake laugh and visibly shrunk down into chair. "I'm your friend, buddy, pal, and chaotic acquaintance all rolled into one!"

"That's very good, Discord," Fluttershy crooned and reached over to pat the draconequus on his back.

Twilight and I shared a quick glance before we each stopped channeling magic through our horns and sat back into our seats. In unison, the two of us returned to drinking our rather delicious sweetened tea and casting suspicious glares at the creature being mothered by Fluttershy.

"Oh, but that does remind me of something," Discord suddenly snapped and sat back up to his full height, causing several of my muscles to twitch slightly. "Dresden, what can you tell me about this other world of yours?"

That threw me off a good while. For several stunned seconds I just sat there as my brain struggled to fix the derailment caused by the sudden change in topic.

"Excuse me?" I lamely managed to sputter out.

Discord tilted his head off to the right and just kind of stared at me with an expression of extreme bemusement. "Dear old Celestia thought that I could be of some use out in the Nevernever, and wanted me to learn as much as I could about my soon to be playthings. You didn't think she just sent me to say 'hi' did you?"

"I, uh, honestly didn't think too much about it," I admitted and quirked an eyebrow back at Discord. "What can you do to help exactly?"

"I am chaos incarnate! Use your imagination, Celestia certainly doesn't!" Discord laughed and threw his claws into the air, to another disapproving glare from Twilight. "A little misinformation here, some plotting there, maybe an uprising or three, and a whole lot of whoopee cushions!" Discord leaned back in his chair until he propped his head on his paw against the chair's armrest. "All I need are some ideas and basic information on this Red Court; where their main bases are, common paths they use, and which of their members are the most vulnerable to insanity. Think you could help me out?"

All of my apprehension with Discord vanished on the spot when I started picturing the havoc he could inflict on the Red Court on our behalf. Delightful little images of vampires hunting down a stray pony or human only to find themselves teleported into an interrogator's cage, or a Red Court safe house suddenly becoming wallpapered with holy symbols blessed by all of the world's spiritual leaders. Needless to say, my mood improved in direct proportion to the number of tactical options Discord gave us all.

"I am more than happy to fly under the proverbial radar of course," Discord quickly added in. "No widespread panic, plenty of Red Court mishaps, and no interfering with your White Council." The draconequus paused and considered something for a short moment before shrugging. "Unless I feel like they deserve it."

A massive grin spread across my face and I gave Discord a slow nod, "Okay yeah, I may have one or two ideas on how you could entertain yourself."


	2. First Contact

**First Contact**

Magic is a wondrous, and sometimes terrifying, force of nature. It can bend reality to your whim, creating beautiful sights and sensations for all to experience. However magic, despite its wonders, cannot escape certain logical consequences, such as transformation. Unless the spell is specifically designed to be addictive, there isn't a painkiller in existence, medical or magical, that can completely block out the pain of your entire skeletal structure shattering and reforming into something completely new.

"AAARGGNGH!" a deep masculine tone bellowed into the bright afternoon sky.

Out in the stretch of plains in-between the infamous Everfree Forest and Ponyville's public library, a large collection of ponies of every size and shape were grouped around one particular section of the tree line. I, along with the Elements of Harmony by my side, stood near the front of the group, directly behind the two chief leaders of Equestria. Princesses Celestia and Luna, garbed in their traditional gleaming regalia, headed our congregation. Behind us, a small battalion of armored ponies stood at attention in a neat military parade formation. Each of the soldiers in formation bore pristine plate mail that shone brightly in the light, every one of them decorated with either an emblem of a bright sun, moon, or a silver pentacle. Beyond even them, a significant percentage of Ponyville's population gathered at the sight of their princesses to sate their collective curiosity; and every single one of our eyes were trained on a single point at the edge of the Everfree Forest.

The subject of our scrutiny was a quivering form hidden underneath a large white sheet only a few feet away from the nearest tree and ten feet from the princesses' hooves. Nopony dared approach the still twitching bundle; operating on the unspoken agreement that Luna's spell, once begun, must be completed unaided lest we get battered around by flailing limbs.

After only a minute or so, the hidden form ceased its flailing and cautiously made its way to the edge closest towards us. A shaking hoof popped out from underneath the sheet and promptly flung it away, revealing a rather large unicorn stallion with a solid lime green coat and a smooth brown mane. His eyes widened slightly as he caught a good look at the entire herd of ponies staring directly at him, and grew to the size of dinner plates when he got a good look at the foreleg he was lifting the sheet with. Understandably, he began taking deep ragged breaths as panic got a good and solid grip on the newly made pony.

"N-no," he stammered, just loud enough for my friends and I to overhear him. "No, this isn't right. T-they said the warding charm would… They said-"

The stallion's impromptu panic attack was cut abruptly short as a certain yellow and pink blur darted across the gap between us can came to a stop next to the unicorn.

"Don't worry," Fluttershy crooned to the distressed pony while sweeping one of her wings across his back, almost exactly like how she calms her upset animals. "You're alright, just relax, you're going to be just fine."

The green unicorn visibly relaxed under Fluttershy's care, albeit only slightly, and forced himself to take several calming breaths while clenching his eyes closed. I could practically see the air around this unicorn thrum with wild energies failing to manifest fully. Whether he was trying to reflexively shoot fire and destruction everywhere or just trying to raise a defensive shield around himself, I wasn't really sure. I suddenly had faint nostalgic feelings of when I was forced to relearn how to channel magic through my horn. After a few quiet moments the green pony's heartbeat finally slowed down to below frantic levels and his breathing eased to match. His eyes eased open and he donned a carefully neutral mask as he cast his wide eyes towards the princesses.

"Transformation is strictly against the White Council's laws," he said in a somewhat threatening and accusatory tone, undermined slightly by Fluttershy busily performing a preliminary medical examination on the unicorn.

Celestia took a small step forward and held her head as high as her long neck would allow. The unnamed unicorn focused every bit of his attention on the approaching princess and recoiled ever so slightly under her gaze.

"You are an emissary of the White Council?" Celestia spoke loud enough for everypony present to clearly hear her. "I was expecting a larger contingent of guards and diplomats."

"Uh, y-yes, I am Warden Duncan," the Warden-turned-pony stammered beneath Celestia's overpowering gaze. "The Senior Council member and emissaries were only a few minutes behind me, I was to scout ahead and report back if necessary." The unicorn's eyes turned downward as he moved to inspect one of his new furry forelegs. "I'm transformed by someone else's power, but still sane? How is this possible?"

_Senior Council member?_ I thought to myself. _Interesting, I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing._

"You have my apologies on that regard, but I am afraid it is quite necessary," Princess Luna spoke up and moved to stand by her sister, drawing the Warden's nervous eyes over to her instead. "If you'll accompany Miss Fluttershy there, she and a few of my finest mages will explain everything. Fluttershy is an exemplary medic and will take good care of you."

The pegasus in question had already pulled together the large white sheet the Warden was changed under and draped it across the unicorn's back like a huge comforter, and was in the process of filling up a much smaller cloth bag with ice cubes. The Warden glimpsed sideways at the motherly pegasus and wordlessly nodded in the affirmative. With a reassuring smile on her face, Fluttershy immediately nudged the unicorn to his hooves and slowly began guiding him to a small area set aside specifically for this purpose.

As soon as the Warden-turned-unicorn was escorted away, a moderately loud roar arose from the population behind us. The residents of Ponyville quickly gathered together in their respective groups or cliques and busily began discussing the actual presence of outside powers inside Equestria. More than a few of the ponies did sound a little worried and distressed in the face of the new and unknown, but the aura radiating from the overwhelmingly powerful dual princesses thankfully prevented tensions from rising too high. Either that, or the wall of pony shaped muscle and steel sitting between them and the newcomer granted them the necessary sense of security they needed.

"Were you like that after you woke up?" Twilight Sparkle whispered into my ear, successfully breaking my train of thought, and pointed a hoof at the Warden struggling and tripping over his own hooves like a newborn foal.

I let out a short sigh and cast a sidelong look at the lavender unicorn by my side. "Unfortunately, yes. There is nothing quite as bizarre as not knowing how to use your own body, though I did manage to sort it out relatively fast, or at least how to physically move around."

Twilight laughed a bit at the nostalgia and refocused her eyes back on the unicorn Fluttershy was busily teaching how to sit down properly, "We're going to have to teach them how to channel magic through their horns before they can leave aren't we?"

"That would be the kind, responsible, and moral thing to do I suppose," I snickered through a small grin, my mischievous side already hard at work with a few plans.

No sooner had those words left me than another surge of magic washed over our collective senses. The air directly behind where the first Warden appeared and transformed, rippled with fresh power. Within a matter of seconds, the Veil was torn asunder and a large gate of almost pure shadow sprang into existence. The tear was a billowing mass of smoke taller than even Celestia, and wide enough to allow a small squad through. The moment that energy touched on my horn, several bells began ringing in my head. I knew exactly who was coming through that gate, and I was just tickled at the notion of seeing an old face.

The ever present commotion rising from the populace behind us died down to a soft whisper as more and more power creeped through the Veil. Ponies of all shapes and sizes stared on in awe at the new sights, sounds, and in the case of the disparate unicorns, new magical sensations.

The smoke momentarily broiled with hidden movement just below the surface, and then parted as multiple cloaked figures stepped through. They were men and women, Wardens of the White Council, each donned in long grey hooded robes that hid their faces and bearing a mixture of long silver blades and ornate staves. The total of six Wardens that stepped through the Veil made no reaction to their sudden shift in environment or company, and instead simply stood at attention in a line before the tear, like a set of grey gargoyles standing guard.

Between and behind them, the Veil parted once more for another, much shorter figure. Dressed in a ragged dark brown leather coat and equally unkempt jeans and undershirt, the stocky little wizard stepped in front of his Warden accompaniment. His hair was silvery white with age and his skin was wrinkly and calloused enough that it was sometimes hard to differentiate his skin from his leather jacket. He was exactly as I remembered him.

"McCoy!" I belted out with an accompanying bark of laughter.

Almost every single set of eyes in the area shifted to stare at me with varying amounts of shock or indignation. Celestia at least seemed to expect something of this nature to occur and merely smiled while standing aside to give me an unobstructed view of the calloused old wizard. Luna, much less used to such interruptions, continually flicked her eyes between McCoy and me, as though trying to discern our relationship through our physical expressions alone. Still chuckling under my breath I took a few quick steps forward to occupy the space that Celestia left vacant, with an intensely interested Twilight following right beside me. Each of the Wardens' faceless hoods followed my every move and they gripped their respective weapons a little tighter.

"Ebenezer you conniving old man," I gleefully continued on, completely ignoring the tension building in the wardens, "what favors did you have to call in to get the Council to send you here?"

McCoy, to his credit, only stared back at me slack-jawed for a couple of seconds before pulling his thoughts together again. I've seen the man face a mob of roaring vampiric monsters without batting an eye, but being addressed by an alicorn as though he were an old friend actually managed to stun him. I took a decent amount of pleasure at being able to still get under my old mentor's skin.

"Hoss?" McCoy almost whispered while staring intently at me. "Is that really you, Harry?"

"Only slightly different than when you last saw me, a little wiser, a lot furrier, but yeah it's me. In the flesh, so to speak." A sudden shifting in the Wardens behind my mentor broke my focus and turned my grin into a sympathetic grimace. "Speaking of which, Celestia, I think your help is needed."

Behind Ebenezer, each of the cloaked wardens began twitching and scratching at various parts of their bodies, as though they had been suddenly covered from head to toe in high quality itching powder. Celestia idly ignited her horn in response and each of the wardens became enveloped in her pain relieving magic while multiple white sheets simultaneously appeared over each of the wardens as well.

Each of the grey cloaked wizards collapsed under the minor weight of the white blankets as Luna's transformative spell well and truly took hold. Ebenezer, still standing straight with his own blanket draped over his shoulders, glimpsed back at the six twitching cloth wrapped lumps that was his escort with only a mild look of amusement.

"So, those charms were completely pointless then," McCoy muttered even while a small smile tugged at the edges of his mouth.

"And yet you still insisted on meeting within Equestria," Celestia responded with a quick glimpse at the soon to be ponies, successfully managing to draw McCoy's attention onto her for the first time. "Did our emissaries not warn you of the working in place around our world, and what it would do?"

Ebenezer took a short moment to straighten his robes before offering a formal bow to the alabaster demi-god. "Indeed they did, but, as I am sure you already know, we wizards are nothing if not incredibly stubborn." McCoy straightened back up and offered the princess a genuine warm smile, "I am Ebenezer McCoy, member of the Senior Council, the ruling party of the White Council, and first formal emissary to Equestria. On behalf of the entire White Council, I thank you for allowing us entry to your land. I assume you are Princess Celestia," his gaze shifted left towards Celestia's dark furred counterpart, "and you, her sister, Princess Luna?"

Luna returned McCoy's smile with her own and a quirked eyebrow, "You are an odd one. Yes, my sister and I are the ruling power you seek." The dark alicorn's eyes narrowed slightly and her nose scrunched up as she studied McCoy's form. "Why have you not begun changing? My spell should have had an effect on you by now."

McCoy thought for a short bit before shrugging and digging a hand around under the neck of his shirt. "Because of this," he cried as he drew out a small amulet in the form of a silver shield. "We were all given charms to try and ward against magic, and a fat lot of good they did," McCoy took a short moment to cast a smirk back at the now slightly smaller cloth covered lumps behind him, "but mine was significantly more heavily enchanted. The head of the White Council himself actually laid the ward over this little trinket."

"The Merlin, seriously?" I took a few more steps forward until I was only a foot or two away and leaned my head in to inspect the innocuous little amulet. "I kind of figured the Merlin sent you out here on the off chance that we turned out to be violent and get rid a wrinkly thorn in his side."

"Definitely my old Hoss, but it's more like the Merlin sent me cause I'm probably the only one in the White Council that knows how to clean up your messes. That's the story I sold him at least," McCoy chuckled and let the amulet fall against his chest. His very eyes wrinkled to join in his smile and the hand that held his amulet reached out until it rested on the fur over my neck. "When I heard that you had disappeared, I thought the Reds had finally managed to get you, or worse. But when we caught wind about all of this, I made damn sure I was the one to come and find you."

"It's good to see you again too, Ebenezer," I responded with a smile to match the old man's.

Our history together may not have been as smooth as Celestia's and Twilight's, but you never quite stop finding some sense of comfort in your mentor.

Our rather touching reunion was cut abruptly short by several cries of shock. Behind McCoy, each of the six sheets had been roughly flipped over to reveal six new unicorns of varying sizes and colorations, some still partly entangled within their robes. Most of the wardens merely stared down at their new hooves, mouths agape. Two of the unicorns struggled to lift their staves and frowned in concentration as they tried and failed to channel their magic through the focuses.

"It's alright, don't worry everypony, you're going to be perfectly fine," Fluttershy cried out and zoomed over to hover over the unicorns, every single one of which peered up at her like frightened children searching for stability. "Your friend is just over here getting some water and talking to some of our most accomplished mages. Why don't you come join us?"

The Wardens mumbled among themselves for only a few moments before unanimously grunting an agreement and following Fluttershy's gesturing hooves. One minute later and I had to really struggle not to laugh at the image the battle hardened wardens, the bane of my existence multiple times during my life, trip and faceplant their way over to the medics' post.

"Wizard McCoy," Luna spoke up and took a step or two forward, practically demanding that the conversation be directed back on track, "I wish you had not brought that amulet, for your sake more than anything. So long as you remain in your current form, the ambient magic here in Equestria will begin to affect your mind. Your White Council might take it as an affront if their first representative returns without his sanity."

Ebenezer's eyes quirked at Luna's words and then began shifting around as though searching for assailants in the breeze or the sunlight. "Is the energy here really that potent?"

"Thus the need for the rather extreme transformative working, yes," Luna responded with vigorous nod.

Twilight, who up to this point had remained uncharacteristically restrained in her pursuit of all knowledge everywhere, practically leapt forward and shouted, "The Princess is the founder of Equestrian transformation and wrote all of the ancient Equestrian biology books! Her transformations really are perfectly safe."

McCoy turned his gaze down to the lavender unicorn at my side and offered her a genuine smile. "I'm afraid I don't have the pleasure, Ms…"

"Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle," she replied at once. "I've been working with Harry for a while now."

"I am sincerely sorry for that," McCoy chuckled and shot me a mischievous smile, to which I gave my best sneer in response. He merely smiled wider and turned his attention back to Celestia. "But your diplomats were a bit vague on this transformation spell of yours. There is an easy way to reverse it correct?"

Celestia nodded and responded, "Of course, you merely need to step back into the Nevernever. Luna's working is bound to Equestria."

Ebenezer's face contorted in a deep frown and his eyes swiveled over to find me. "Then why are you still here? You're pretty far from a diplomat, Hoss."

My eyes almost immediately pivoted to track Twilight, a motion I am dead sure McCoy noticed. If the White Council were to learn that their main connection within Equestria was already setting down proverbial roots, then that person's interests could fairly easily be read as conflicted and counterproductive to the White Council. If that were to happen, then they might just try to remove that conflict, regardless of Celestia's claim over me. I also knew that was something Ebenezer would never let happen, but plausible deniability is a very useful tool sometimes.

"Because of a number of reasons," I answered after a moment's hesitation. "The most preventative of which is that I simply can't. A little while ago when the Red Court presence here began to grow out of control, I was forced to do something incredibly stupid to stop it." I extended my right wing out in the air to flutter over Twilight, giving the mare some nice shade and reinforcing my point at the same time, "As a consequence of that, this body is now permanent. I highly doubt my presence would go unnoticed in Chicago's streets."

McCoy's eyes flicked between Twilight and me once more before he seemed to come to some conclusion and let out a mixture of a chuckle and a sigh. "I'm sorry to hear that, Hoss. Though you if being trapped here is your only repercussion, I'd say you could do worse." His face turned a couple shades darker and his eyes unfocused as his thoughts clearly drifted elsewhere. "You, you especially, don't want to go back home right now."

The cheery atmosphere I'd been establishing broke apart at the drop of a hat.

My head instinctively quirked to the side as I carefully studied the old man's face. "McCoy, something wrong?"

Instead of answering, Ebenezer turned his attention to the princesses and bowed his head. "Celestia, Luna, we can go over the specifics of Equestria's treaty with the White Council later, but I'd like to make you aware of something. Most of the other Senior Council members may deny this if you ask them, but they are pretty desperate to make a deal for assistance."

"Ebenezer, what is going on back home?" I cut in, a familiar pit forming within my stomach.

"Put simply, the Red Court is only a few bad days away from true insanity," McCoy answered, a hint of genuine righteous anger creeping into his voice and his gaze. "You were the Red Court's ultimate price for a temporary peace, Harry. When the option of your head on a platter vanished, the Red Court lost its ability to vie for a reasonable peace and still save face. Even if we were to offer up Harry now," McCoy lifted his hands defensively into the air as Twilight tried to kill him with her gaze, "which I would never do, they could just claim that you're some random Equestrian. Unless we're willing to lose whole countries in negotiations, the most we can do is agree to short ceasefires. So now they're redoubling their efforts against us. It's all we can do to keep up."

"Then it sounds like you need us as much as we need you," Celestia spoke up again, her calming smile and warm aura never wavering for a second despite the subject matter. "If your White Council should fall, I doubt those creatures would be satisfied with only one world. Perhaps if we sent some soldiers to a Red Court supply route we might be able to smooth some worries your people have with us."

At her words the entirety of the battalion behind us snapped to attention with an echoing _thud_ of steel covered hooves on hard ground. I caught a glimpse of the rows and rows of ponies armed and armored to wreak all sorts of medieval mayhem. I couldn't quite prevent myself from picturing us marching against the Red Court to the tune of the Imperial March.

"I would hold off on that for now, Sister," Luna interjected "If we act without knowledge of the other powers moving around, we could inadvertently make things much worse.

_And there goes my Imperial army fantasy._

"Well said. Now, I do bring more than just doom and gloom," Ebenezer chuckled and idly scratched at something on the back of his neck, his attitude once again shifting hard enough to cause whiplash. "I've been keeping in contact with your little group of friends back in Chicago, and they are still hard at work protecting Chicago in your absence. It's still not the safest place in the world, but your cop friend and that Knight of the Cross you managed to entangle yourself with have forced a good number of the Red Court goons off the streets at least."

A rush of pride swept through me at those words. While I wasn't overly happy that my friends were still in peril on a semi regular basis, it was good to know that they were still fighting the good fight. I don't really know why, but I've always seemed to have a knack for finding friends that punch my face in the first time we meet, then join me on my insane little quest. It kind of makes me wonder if my particular form of insanity is contagious.

Twilight, as though sensing my nostalgia, energetically tapped a hoof against my side. "Do you think we'll be able to meet the rest of your friends there? I'd love to learn more about them."

I smiled at the mare and draped my wing down over her in a small feathery hug, "Hopefully, but don't be surprised if they start laughing uncontrollably at me."

McCoy loudly cleared his throat, drawing all eyes back onto him and causing my right wing snap to my side so fast it practically buried into my fur. Ebenezer's eyes once again flicked between Twilight and me, a small knowing smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

_Damn old man and his squirrely little eyes._

After a brief pause Ebenezer clapped his hands once and turned to address the royal sisters. "Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, I'd like to ask if we may continue proper diplomatic discussions at our camp just on the other side of the Veil, preferably in a few hours. I'm sure my mind can last at least that long in Equestria." McCoy's left hand reached up to tussle the wiry mane on my head while his right reached back to continue scratching at his neck. "I'd like to catch up a little with my old protégé."

"I understand," Celestia said with a warm smile and a quick glimpse at Twilight. "We will reconvene in the evening. I'll have a selection of food brought with us."

McCoy released my mane and gave a short bow to the princesses, "I'm looking forward to it."

Then, with a subtle beckoning flick of my head, Ebenezer, Twilight, and I turned to leave the amassed ponies. As we started to depart, I dimly noted that many of the ponies were either likewise making their own departure or discussing what they just overheard. The armored ponies and the remaining Elements of Harmony in particular could be easily seen bunching together in what could only be described as gossiping circles.

"So, Ms. Twilight Sparkle, I'd love to get a tour of where you and Harry have been staying," Ebenezer asked while leaning forward slightly.

Twilight, delightfully oblivious to the smugness practically dripping from his voice, turned an amused face up towards the old man. "Oh, how'd you know we were living together?"

"Intuition," he responded and shot me a venomous little smile, with his right hand still scratching away at his neck.

Operating off a hunch, I took the opportunity and got a good look at where he was scratching. To my everlasting delight, my keen eyes spotted a patch of light brown fur bristling up over the skin of his neck. The massive smile that spread across my muzzle was only partly because I was about to see something I'd been quietly wishing for a while now, but also because I now knew that not even the Merlin's potent magic could hold off Luna's spells for very long.

"Hey, McCoy," I chuckled, my voice practically slithering through my teeth, "you think that intuition of yours could get you some pain-killers?"

My mentor's face turned to genuine confusion as we continued walking on our path and his hand continued scratching away at his neck. "Why do you ask?"


	3. Ascension

**Ascension**

Contrary to what my depressingly long monster hunting resume might suggest, I am not necessarily the most stable pony in the middle of a crisis. I'm not the most stable pony outside of a crisis either. I have only really survived as long as I have through a significant amount of prep work, reliance on much more prepared friends, and a whole lot of blind luck. That being said, when I inevitably do get blindsided, I have at least a few investigative instincts that I can fall back on.

"Where the heck is Twilight?!" I frantically shouted out into the Ponyville's library central browsing area. "What happened to her?!"

Calm, cool, and collected I am not.

I stood on the middle of Twilight's library surrounded by her precious books and even more precious friends. Near the center of the room was a massive scorch mark where apparently Twilight Sparkle had been standing mere moments before, but no longer. The remaining Bearers of the Elements, each with their respective Element hung around their necks, stared at the mark where their friend had been with varying degrees of abject horror.

Both Rarity and Applejack stared at the scorch mark, eyes wide and mouths nearly on the floor in an almost comical expression of complete shock. Fluttershy backed away from the mark until her flank bumped against one the bookshelves lining the wall and curled up into a tight little ball, her eyes dangerously close to exploding in tears. Rainbow Dash merely hovered in the air and frowned down at the room, as though she were still processing what she had just seen. Only Pinkie seemed to not be overly horrified by what she just saw and was practically pressing her face to the floor to get a better look at the ash where Twilight was.

"We don't know, Harry," Fluttershy whimpered and flinched a little further away while holding onto the Element of Harmony around her neck all the harder. "S-she was just standing there, reworking some old spell that backfired earlier."

"That spell of hers made all of our cutie marks get switched around, start trying perform each other's duties, and in general caused mayhem because of it," Applejack added as she leaned forward a little and studied the burn mark with new determination.

"She managed to fix it though, I think, I'm not too familiar with this form of magic," Rarity added, her eyes constantly shifting back and forth between the charred floor and myself. "When she recast the spell, we were all wearing our respective Elements and everything got set right again, but then there was this bright light and all of our Elements hit Twilight with their energy." Rarity turned and mimicked Applejack's inquisitive stare at the burn mark. "Then Twilight was just gone."

My head swiveled around towards the library's front entrance while my lungs expanded in preparation to shout. "SILVER GUARD!"

The front door immediately swung open, and through it three heavily armed and armored ponies poured through. One was an earth pony clad in probably the heaviest barding imaginable and carried a long spear in a harness across his back, the second was a pegasus wearing a tunic of chainmail held together with belts of crossbow bolts, the final was a unicorn wearing an interesting blend of flowing linen robes with armored plates woven into the fabric. All three of the ponies bore a silver pentacle, similar to the mark on my flank, embroidered on their respective chest plates, of my Silver Knights. The Unicorn stepped forward while the earth pony and pegasus stayed behind to flank the entrance and keep a wary eye on every possible point of ingress.

"Bearers, Sir, you called?" the unicorn said with a small bow to my friends and then to me.

"Guard," I snapped at the lead unicorn, instinctively adopting a commanding tone as my heart raced in my chest and multiple worse-case scenarios played in my mind's eye, "the White Council representatives are still in their camp, right?"

"Yes sir, only one messenger has left since they made camp a few days ago, and none of them are willing to cross into Equestria again after their personal wards failed. I believe the elder McCoy is aiding Princess Luna in rebuilding her keep within the Nevernever."

I grunted a little in the affirmative and glared intently at the soldier. "Good, you will send word to them that Celestia's personal protégé, Twilight Sparkle, has gone missing. If she inadvertently crossed into the Nevernever, I want her found. Understood?"

All three ponies simultaneously snapped to attention and belted out a "Yes, Sir!" In short order, each of the soldiers turned and charged out of the entryway, the unicorn's horn glowing brightly with amber light, presumably charging up a spell to rend the Veil. As soon as the door slammed behind the soldiers, with an accompanying flash of brilliant light, I too pivoted on my hooves and made for stairs leading to the bedrooms upstairs.

"Harry, where are you going?!" Fluttershy squeaked as I bolted past her. "Shouldn't you go with the soldiers to look for Twilight?"

"I am looking for her," I shouted back while my hooves hammered up the wooden stairs.

My mane whipped up around my face as I dodged and weaved around the various furniture and decorations of my new home. While passing by our large cushioned bed, one of my favorite wizarding tools flew from its resting place on my bedside table to follow after me, a deep red aura surrounding it completely. My second stop brought me to Twilight's personal grooming station, and my prize was waiting for me in the middle of the desktop among several other cleaning supplies.

Treasures in my magical grip, I bounded back down the stairs and landed with a resounding thud back on the first floor among five of my newest friends. Each of the mares stared at me in shock and confusion while I didn't dare waste a second and set to work on the objects in my grip: a hoof-sized crystal suspended on a string and a tuft of deep lavender hair.

"What in tarnation are you doing, Harry?" Applejack asked and leaned in a little to peer at my tools. "Is that Twilight's hair?"

"Yes, I used to do this all the time back at my old job," I idly responded while carefully wrapping the length of purple hair around the crystal. "Long story short, I'm going to use magic to create a link between this scrap of hair back to the source material, Twilight. If she just teleported instead of crossing the Veil, then we'll follow that link and find her."

"So if this spell doesn't work?" Pinkie asked and tilted her head slightly.

With the lock of hair secure around the crystal, I released it and let it dangle before me on its string. "Then she's in the Nevernever, and Luna and McCoy will find her."

"B-but," Fluttershy stammered, successfully drawing my attention away from my only real lead to finding my lost marefriend, "what if she's not there either?"

Fluttershy recoiled slightly under my heavy gaze. I tried my very best not to actually entertain her very valid concern, but I couldn't quite stop my eyes from drifting back over to the scorch mark in the center of the library. I took a small steadying breath and focused ever more intently on the crystal in my grasp.

"She is either here or in the Nevernever," I growled softly under my breath, my usual lighthearted nature suspended in the face of my outright denial to accept a possibility I didn't like.

An uncomfortable silence befell the room as the mares turned their respective gazes towards the hair-wrapped focus hovering in front of me. My magic carefully wound around the crystal, and through it, the fragment of Twilight. My trademarked tracking spell quickly formed around the lavender locks, took hold of the essence within, and sought out its source.

Almost immediately, the crystal shone with a brilliant purple light and flew to the side as far as the length of string would allow. The string connecting the focus to my telekinetic grip hung almost parallel to the ground as the crystal tried very hard to get at the library's main entrance.

"AHAHA!" I cheered and did a small joyous hop almost worthy of a certain pink party pony. "I told you she's still around here somewhere!"

"Really?!" Pinkie cried and casually bounced a good few feet higher than my feeble attempt at excitement. The moment the hyperactive pink mare hit the ground, she sped towards and crashed through the library's front door in a massive pink blur of motion, followed quickly by a high-pitched, "Are you all coming or what?!"

My rump and hind legs abruptly lifted off the floor a few inches as a heavy force hit my flank and began pushing. I craned my head around and found Applejack almost flattening her signature Stetson against my flank as she pushed at me with her head.

"You heard her, Mr. Magic Man," she said and backed off a couple of steps, letting the hooves of my hind legs hit the wood floor again with a loud _thonk_. "Get yer flank moving, you and that fancy rock of yours need to lead the way."

"You don't need to tell me twice," I responded and eagerly followed Pinkie out through the Library's door.

The chill of the night air washed across my face the moment I crossed through to the outside. Luna's large moon hung in the sky over Ponyville, its luminescent glow lit the small town almost as well as the morning sun. Ponyville's moonlit streets were mostly vacant in the evening hours; only one straggling couple could be seen returning home off in the distance. It's too bad that peaceful little picture didn't last very long.

"She's this way!" I shouted into the quiet town and charged ahead at full speed after the crystal bobbing lazily in front of me.

Behind me, each of the Bearers of the Elements galloped and flew after me as fast as their hooves and wings would allow. Unsurprisingly, both Applejack and Rainbow Dash fairly easily kept up with my longer than average legs and the faster gallop therein. Pinkie, keeping true to her usual quirky little self, hopped along behind Applejack at the same speed AJ was galloping. Both Rarity and Fluttershy lagged behind the rest of the group slightly, their attention more devoted to searching our surroundings for their missing friend.

The more we galloped through Ponyville though, the more I was sure that something wasn't quite right with my spell. At first my eyes were so locked on the hair-wrapped focus that I didn't notice anything odd in relation to our surroundings. It wasn't until my neck was starting to burn from my craning head that I decided to shift my attention to our environment. It was only then that I realized that as we traveled further into town, the tracking crystal slowly crept up and up into the air until I was facing the night sky.

Our impromptu stampede through Ponyville came to an abrupt end as we neared the fountain in the town square. I slammed on my brakes once I realized that something was amiss, my hooves skidding across the stone pathway several feet with my accumulated momentum. Before I could give much attention to our new heading, I was brutally reminded exactly why it's a bad idea to stop suddenly when leading a charging mass of ponies.

One after another, the Bearers of the Elements each let out a surprised shout and crashed into my pentacle emblazoned flank. Where there once was a herd of ponies charging through an empty town square in the dead of night, there was instead a mass of tangled limbs and confused shouting. Only Rainbow Dash and her compulsive need to fly everywhere was spared our fate.

"Whoa there, Harry" Rainbow chuckled and strafed in the air around the moderately sized pony pile we had become. "What's with the brakes?"

"A little warning would have been nice," Applejack added as she carefully extricated herself from the rest of us. In a few short seconds she and the rest of us were standing in a small, if disheveled, huddle around me. "That trinket of yours find something, Harry? I don't see any trail Twilight would have left around here."

"I thought you said that tracking spell would point us right to her," Fluttershy squeaked, worry for Twilight making her voice an octave or two higher and causing her wings to twitch against her side.

"It is," I responded back while scowling at the crystal still pointing defiantly into the sky. "Or at least it's supposed to." My eyes shifted past the crystal and began scanning the starlit night sky. "The tracking spell is supposed to point in a straight line at Twilight. That line could theoretically be warped if a powerful enough spell was interfering, but it wouldn't have formed at all if Twilight wasn't here somewhere."

"Well maybe she just got teleported up to Cloudsdale somewhere," Rarity offered and turned her eyes skyward as well. "She's used magic to land safely on clouds before."

"Yeah, I bet that's it!" Rainbow cried and shot into the air before shouting back, "Just give me a minute. I'll go find her!"

"Wait!" I bellowed after the overeager pegasus.

Each of the mares around me paused in their various fidgeting and searching to give me their full attention. Even Rainbow, in a rare moment of compliance, snapped her wings as wide as possible to expertly stop on a dime in midair. The pegasus flipped right around and performed one of her signature dive bombs before stopping just over our heads, consequently sending a large wave of air over us in the process. I paid their actions little mind however, as something else in the sky caught my attention.

I lowered my head slightly until I was looking down the length of string with one large amber eye. From my vantage point I could see that the string and the crystal at the end was pointing directly at one particular star in the night sky. The star in question shone in the sky with a slight purple glow and was even surrounded by multiple smaller glints of light. It looked almost like Twilight's cutie mark.

"Twilight's been trying to get me caught up on all things Equestrian, but we've yet to do any astronomy." I pointed my left foreleg alongside my tracking crystal at the curious star, "Does that look right to you all, or am I seeing things?"

As one, each of the mares followed my hoof up until their eyes met with the star. None of them answered immediately, choosing instead to collectively stare up at their friend's cutie mark in stunned silence.

Rarity was the first to find her voice and muttered under her breath, "What in Equestria?"

"Since when did Twilight have her own star?" Pinkie pipped up and hopped in place with barely contained excitement. "I wonder if this calls for a 'congratulation-style party' or a 'birthday-style party'."

Rainbow's wings fluttered slightly as she came to land beside the pink earth pony, while never losing eye contact with the symbol. "As much as I hate to admit it, I'm pretty sure I can't fly that high up."

"Forget about flying up there," Applejack interjected and pointed her own hoof at the star, "I think it's coming down here!"

For a good few seconds I just stared up at the gleaming star and just tried to process what AJ said, something about the sky literally falling didn't quite want to mesh with my mind. But sure enough, the large lavender-tinted star was indeed not only slowly growing brighter, but descending. Almost immediately after I made this observation however, the cutie mark star kicked into overdrive and abruptly plummeted towards the earth, directly at us.

"HELLS BELLS!" I bellowed and instinctively reached for my power.

With reflexes born from far too many near-death experiences, magic surged through the spiraled horn on my head, and through the ruby shield charm resting on the base. An instant before the star came crashing down, a large transparent crimson dome popped into existence over myself and my very surprised friends. Moments later it met the ground and its brilliant light completely blotted out all else in the world, and took two forceful stabs into my eyes.

"Whoa there, what's going on?!" Applejack cried out somewhere off to my right, and judging by the reverberation I felt through my spell, stumbled into the inside of my shield dome.

A second, much harder impact hit the inside of my shield from just over my head, accompanied by the unmistakable voice of Rainbow Dash shouting, "I can't see, what did I just hit?!"

Curiously enough, the star itself never actually hit my shield. If my past experiences with Murphy's Law were anything to judge by, then a speeding comet of light actually NOT hitting me was nothing less than divine intervention. My own shock aside, I raised a hoof to shield my eyes from the blinding light while simultaneously properly reinforcing my shield up to my usual standard.

Behind my outstretched foreleg, the light of the fallen star slowly began to dim. I squinted through my eyelids as vague shapes began to take form within the brightness. As the light waned, a very familiar magical aura washed over my senses; despite my combat instincts screaming at me to ready a blast of fire or force, I found myself relaxing under the sensation slowly relaxing my hold on my shield. Then in a matter of seconds, the light faded completely and revealed a certain lavender pony shaking slightly in the middle of a massive scorch mark.

Several excited cries of, "Twilight!" rang out from each us as we all bounded forward towards the lost pony, with me at the lead. My crimson shield shattered instantly when the tip of my horn met the dome of energy, and dispersed into a cloud of harmless red sparkling mist.

Twilight didn't look up as the six of us galloped towards her, while her head was held high, her eyes were downcast as though she were still recovering from some shock. I was the first to reach her and her very frame shook as I pressed my furred chest to hers and wound my long neck around her own in a simple hug. The rest of our friends were hot on my hooves and quickly huddled around us, each of them either cheering for their friend's return or raining down constant stream of questions.

"Twilight, what happened?!" I said just loud enough to be heard over the ongoing ramblings of the other five Bearers, while steadfastly refusing to break away from the pony that had presumably exploded earlier that evening. "I was in the basement working, there was this flash of light and magic, and when I came up we thought that you were gone. What happened?"

"I'm alright," Twilight shakily said aloud and leaned into my neck, returning my small gesture. "Just a little shaken."

I was about to take a step away and begin a cursory medical onceover before pushing our wonder medic Fluttershy forward, when I felt Twilight stretch two limbs around my back and a more traditional hug. I didn't contest the motion, more for her benefit not my own I swear, and simply enjoyed the warmth after our collective panic attack. The details behind this panic became much more important however when I noticed two odd things: first, the other five Bearers of the Elements stopped their barrage of questions in favor of a deafening silence, second, Twilight's forelegs were still firmly planted in the stone beneath us. Which kind of begged the question, what was hugging me?

Very quickly, calmly, and not at all like a venomous spider had just dropped on the end of my muzzle, I twitched up and away from the limbs wrapped around me and got my first good look at Twilight, and dear Lord she was beautiful. Twilight stood before me on slightly unsure legs, free of the spell-layered robe she'd made shortly after our first meeting, and craned her head around to inspect the two large purple feathered wings that had sprouted from her back. The limbs, once I broke free from their hold, defaulted to stretching out in the air beside her. Their simple feathered nature brought to mind the elegance of a great number of majestic birds, or even Celestia herself.

My own wings, which up till now had remained glued to my sides like a leech, twitched and flapped slightly out beside me as though I were about to attempt one of Rainbow Dash's "exercises". The feathers of Twilight's wings lay perfectly in line, each of the primaries lay flat and sleek while the downy fluff protecting the central bone structure was likewise trim and padded to insulate her wings. In the relatively short time I had my wings, they had fallen into a state of disrepair. My primary feathers stuck out at odd angles to each other and the down was puffed up to the point where the leading edge of my wings were essentially long grey pillows. While they may be comfy after a long day of lessons on everything Equestria with Twilight, they did kind of bring to mind the wings of the flightless ostrich.

All of this information flowed through me as I stared shocked at the simple elegance of Twilight and her wings, and the only concrete thought my mind managed to conjure up was, _Maybe I should try that preening thing Rainbow and Flutters keep trying to push on me._

"T-Twilight," Rarity stammered with wide eyes scanning over Twilight's new limbs. "Darling, what happened to you?"

"You look like a princess," Fluttershy added in and advanced slowly on Twilight, as though she were going to perform one of her medical inspections.

"That would be because she is," a familiar, soft, and melodic voice sang from somewhere off behind me.

Each and every single one of us jumped slightly in surprise, along with a total of four sets of wings springing to attention, and turned to face the voice's source. Celestia, dressed up in her standard golden regalia, very calmly strode towards us through a gleaming white portal that had most certainly not been there a few seconds before. Her eyes tracked over each of us and her smile was so warm that the darkened town square actually brightened a good bit by her simple joy.

"Or, at least in part, I should say." The solar princess took a few steps closer to us before stopping and fanning her wings out beside her.

Applejack took a nervous step forward and offered Celestia a small bow before saying, "Princess, what is going on? Our night's been a bit more exciting than we usually like."

"Speak for yourself, AJ," Rainbow chirped and flitted to hover over and study her friend's new limbs with a scrutinizing eye.

"Just something of a final test, dear Applejack," the princess responded and offered the farm pony a small bow of her own before turning her attention back over her still stunned protégé.

"S-So when the Element's reacted to her spell earlier…?" Fluttershy started to ask but her voice trailed off slightly as she processed what she was hearing.

"I was teleported somewhere," Twilight finally spoke up, evidently satisfied with her preliminary inspection of her new wings and turned her attention back to us, a wide smile stretched across her muzzle. "I saw every happy memory I had with you all, every accomplishment, every revelation you helped me achieve." Her smile soured a bit and her wings folded back down to her side. "Also our obstacles, our hardships…"

A certain amount of sympathetic pain, and genuine dread, seeped into my chest and pulled at my heart strings. Several images of recent death and destruction made themselves readily available to my mind's eye, chief among them, the crumpled forms of Twilight's parents left behind after the Red Court's attack on Canterlot. Using time honored and very emotionally unhealthy practices, I pushed those thoughts back down as hard as I could and offered Twilight a warm smile. So soon after that catastrophe, I was still having some difficulty waking up in the morning and not thinking of such destruction, I couldn't imagine Twilight having to re-witness that was doing her any favors either.

Just a few inches away, I saw Twilight visibly force her thoughts into order as well, and returned my weary smile. "And how we overcame them. Because of you, of all of you," she added with a quick sweeping gesture over her friends, "we are made stronger together."

"I'll say," Applejack laughed and knocked a hoof on the stone beneath her.

"We did kind of manage to get into more than a few hazardous situations," Rarity added and rubbed a white foreleg under her chin. "Even before you showed up, Harry."

_Was that a shot?_

Celestia's bright aura flared up slightly, simultaneously silencing us all and drawing all eyes back over her. The large white alicorn slowly made her way towards us, her gold covered hooves curiously making little to no noise on the stone of the town square. Pinkie, Rainbow, AJ, and Rarity all wordlessly backed away as the demi-god approached. For a moment I was about to back away as well, under the assumption that Celestia wanted to say something to her student, but one glimpse into her large eyes and I felt my hooves plant themselves in accordance to the alicorn's unspoken command.

"Twilight," Celestia spoke softly once she'd come close enough to lightly tap her horn against Twilight's forehead, "you have worked tirelessly and faithfully as my star pupil. You have grown far more than I thought possible, and a little bit faster than I would have preferred. I had feared that recent events might have left you pained and withdrawn," Celestia's eyes flicked between Twilight and I, and a wonderful wave of warmth swept over us both as the Sun Princess offered us a wide smile, "but I am delighted to see that is not the case. This one final test was all I needed to see that you had persevered despite all odds, and still champion the Element of Harmony that you represent. It is for that reason that I have given you the greatest honor I can bestow: an alicorn's form."

I gave Twilight a sidelong glimpse and was slightly surprised to see tears streaming from her eyes. The lavender alicorn opened her mouth to try and thank her mentor, but her voice caught in her throat. After several seconds of breathless mouthing, she conceded defeat and simply bowed her head in a silent thanks to her mentor. Satisfied with her, Celestia turned her attention back over to me.

"Harry Dresden," she began, her smile withering only slightly as she bowed her horn to touch upon me as well, "your form was forced upon you, much to your distress, but no less deserved. Regardless of the circumstances, you came to Equestria's aid in its darkest hour and were instrumental to all of our survival. You have a good heart and will stop at nothing to protect those you care about. I can think of nopony better to stand beside Twilight and the Elements of Harmony in the events to come. I can only apologize that you had to sacrifice your original self in your service."

I let out a small bark of laughter, which for whatever reason caused my overly poufy wings to stand on end, and returned her smile, "Don't worry about it, Celestia. Just do us all a small favor and next time let us know before you decide to give us a fright."

"I will keep that in mind." The white alicorn's eyes quirked up over my back before returning to my face. "If you will take some advice from your friends on preening."

"Thank you so much!" Twilight practically exploded, having only just then found her voice and bowed as deeply as she could for her mentor. "I-I never thought that I'd ever… that you'd ever…"

"You have earned it and more, my loyal student," Celestia crooned. "Though like I mentioned before, neither you nor Mr. Dresden are true alicorns like Luna or myself. Your magical might does still have certain limitations. So please do not throw yourself into dangerous experiments and expect to come out fine." Her gaze shifted to shoot an amused look at me. "Goodness knows I don't need two of you."

_Again with the shots?_ I inwardly scolded. _My 'dangerous experiments' saved your sunshiny flank._

Our friends each let out a small good natured chuckle that stung my pride only a little bit. Beside me, Twilight rose back to her hooves and joined in with her friends, her smile practically as radiant as Celestia's white coat.

The alabaster alicorn in question took a few steps away while an aura of her unique magic lit her long horn. "There will be time for a proper ceremony in Canterlot at a later date. At the moment Luna and I are somewhat busy trying to keep that Senior Council member content in his encampment beyond the Veil. He is still very… irritated at being forced into a pony form when he crossed into Equestria."

"I'd recommend breaking into your stash of Big Mac's special cider for this one," I spoke up, a small chuckle ringing deep in my throat. "I can tell you from experience that McCoy is a little more prone to forgiving and forgetting if you pump enough alcohol in him to threaten his liver."

"I'll keep that in mind," Celestia laughed, her horn flaring up as she ever so casually reopened a tear in reality behind her. "For now though, I leave Ponyville, and the Silver Guard, under your well-earned rule. Princess Twilight, Prince Dresden, Bearers of the Elements, I know you will lead them well."

Then as suddenly as she appeared, Celestia stepped back through her Way and sew shut the portal behind her, leaving only residual energy and Twilight's new wings as evidence of her presence.

_I still don't like it when ponies call me that,_ I inwardly grumbled before turning around to face Twilight and give her some deserved congratulations. I really needn't have bothered.

"Oh my goodness, Twilight," Rarity nearly squealed and danced on the spot like an overly excited child. "Congratulations!"

Pinkie abruptly threw away any notions of personal boundaries she had and practically buried her face into one of Twilight's wings, causing only a minor indignant eye twitch in the rest of us.

"Hmmmm, it's going to be tough copying this pattern onto one of my cakes," she muttered, her voice muffled slightly by the same feathers she was studying.

Applejack quickly planted her head on Pinkie's side and began pushing her. "Now Pinkie, what have we told you about personal space?"

Fluttershy simply chose to sit back on her haunches and continue staring wide-eyed at the newly made alicorn as though she were the very personification of beauty.

"Thank you," Twilight uttered, her voice and wings still fluttering slightly with the gravity of the situation, "but I think we've all had an eventful night, and I still need to learn a comfortable way to sleep with these things." Her wings gave a single large flap for emphasis, though whether or not it was intentional was anyone's guess.

"I second that," I agreed and flicked my eyes upward. "And not just because Rainbow's looking at us like she's about to eat us."

Hovering over our heads, Rainbow Dash was smiling down at us with a predatory grin and rubbing her forelegs together almost exactly like a Red Court vampire inspecting its prey. My ears automatically swiveled towards her as I distinctly heard Rainbow mutter under her breath, "Now I can put both of you eggheads through my flight course."

"Thank you again, girls," Twilight quickly added, her entire form going a little bit rigid under Rainbow's gaze. "We'll meet again in the morning and break the news to the Silver Guard."

My own much more disordered wing draped over Twilight as I gently drew her away. "I'm sure we'll all have a lot of questions to dodge soon, but I plan to get a good night's rest to smooth over my most recent heart attack. Goodnight, everypony."

Each of my friends shot a quick glance between themselves before turning wide smiles to Twilight and I and echoing, "Goodnight!" back at us.

"Do you think we should tell the Silver Guard that Twilight's okay?" Fluttershy finally chirped up, her wings lifting her in the air slightly as her head pivoted around.

"I'm sure Celestia's got it," Rainbow offered and continued boring a hole in my back with her stare, sending a distinctive chill down my spine.

Pinkie took off like a bullet shortly after Twilight and I made to leave, undoubtedly to go and prepare whatever party she deemed worthy for Twilight's ascension. The mere prospect of such a party made the bottom drop out of my stomach, even more so than the idea of a work out session with Rainbow or a wrestling match with a Red Court vampire. In short order, the rest of my friends followed suit after Pinkie and made their ways back to their respective homes.

Twilight and I retraced the steps of her search party and slowly made our way back to our home. We walked back in almost utter silence, choosing instead to simply enjoy the fairly rare moment of serenity.

Our original stampede through Ponyville evidently roused some of the townsfolk from their rest, as more than a few tired eyes spied us from various homes. The fact that a new alicorn had taken up residence in the little town meant that common ponies were watching me curiously whenever I went out. While I will likely never be comfortable with the idea of others watching my every step, my forced status symbol was managing to calm my paranoia somewhat. That being said, my large left wing never quite left its place over Twilight's back and her opposite side, effectively hiding her own wings under mine. I didn't relish the idea of having our sleep disturbed by a horde of excited ponies hoping to catch a glimpse at the new princess.

That particular train of thought was derailed somewhat as one of Twilight's wings twitched unexpectedly and buffeted against my barrel. My protective instincts were pushed aside and replaced with inquisitive ones when a single question popped into my mind, and demanded an answer.

"Sooooo," I said, stretching the word out far more than necessary, "I've got to ask. Did it hurt?"

Twilight, bless her heart, actually took a full ten seconds to take in and process what I had just said before turning an amused scowl on me. "Harry, I swear, if you say: 'When I fell from-'"

"No, no, no, no," I chuckled and rolled my eyes at the lavender alicorn. "I'm not quite that cheesy. I meant that seriously, did getting the wings hurt?"

Twilight's eyes blinked and went slightly out of focus as she tried to remember every detail of the process she underwent. "No, not really. It was mostly just really warm. I mean, Celestia was pooling a lot of energy into me throughout the transformation, including a lot of numbing magic. There was some pressure when the actual wings grew, but it was mostly just warm."

"Hmm," I harrumphed and turned my gaze decidedly forward, my mood slightly soured.

Twilight frowned and studied my expression carefully for only a few seconds before something visibly clicked in the back of her head.

"You're grumpy by how you got your wings aren't you?"

"I get shards of bone and sinew literally ripping their way from my back," I said in a fake exasperated tone, "you get a warm summer breeze."

Twilight craned her head around and rested it on the feathered pillow that was my wing. "Then you'd think you might take better care of them. I quite like them as they are, but I think Rainbow takes it as a personal insult every day you don't preen."

"Maybe she can teach us both."

Chuckling while we trotted along, we rounded one last corner and the Golden Oaks Library came back into view. The warm comfort of our home was marred slightly by the shining Silver Guard ponies standing sentinel outside the structure.

I sighed heavily as I was forcibly reminded of the duties the Bearer's and I now shared as leaders in this small town. "We're making our first real expedition into the Nevernever soon aren't we?"

"Yes," Twilight answered, a slight bit of tension rising in her form as she did. "For the first time in centuries, Equestria will expand its borders, and we get to lead that charge."

"Let's get inside then, we're going to need to be rested." My wing squeezed tight around her barrel at the prospect and my hooves picked up speed, eager to get us home.


	4. First Flight

**First Flight**

"How's this?" I asked, extending out a long grey wing before me and spitting a few stray pieces of down that had collected on my muzzle.

"Not bad, not bad at all," Rainbow Dash commented after a moment's consideration of my outstretched wing. "Now just do the other one and we can get started."

"What exactly is the plan here, Rainbow?" I asked and started working over my still chaos-infused right wing. "You already hammered in basic gliding pretty much the day after we moved back here, against Celestia's wishes I might add."

Preening, contrary to my initial suspicions, was actually a relatively simple process with minimal headache and time required, especially with the aid of magic. My hooves worked over the disjointed and disheveled primaries of my right wing, bringing them back into proper alignment. The leading edge of my wing received a gentle yet firm ring of telekinesis as my magic ran down its length. The downy fluff protecting the bone, which was a lot more pillow than insulation at the moment, flattened back down into a proper covering as my magic passed over it. Every few inches or so the down refused to flatten under my power, requiring me to dig my muzzle into the fluff to remove the obstruction. All in all it's a process that takes only a few minutes and causes only slight discomfort when I inevitably pluck a feather or five from my wings.

"We're here to learn," Rainbow scoffed at my less than enthusiastic response and swept a foreleg in the air around her. "Like it or not you've got pegasus blood in you now, and if you want to lead my Silver Knight pegasi, then you better act the part. I'll have my wings plucked I let before you meet them on solid ground again."

"I'm pretty sure the blood thing doesn't work that way," I tried to retort back at the overeager pegasus, but owing to the fact that I was muzzle deep in grey feathers, my words came out as little more than muffled grunts. While my teeth were busy trying to get at what I'm pretty sure was a leaf buried in my down, I resorted to passive aggressively diverting my eyes to look over my surroundings.

We were situated on one of the larger hills, or smaller mountains depending on your viewpoint, within easy hiking distance of Ponyville. We had a completely unobstructed view for miles around, the top of Rainbow's chosen hill cresting well over the tallest of the nearby trees or any of Ponyville's structures. While the view was beautiful to say the least, it was a slightly unnerving perch. The side on the hill facing the town in the distance had apparently earned Mother Nature's ire and was cleaved off quite some time ago. What was left was a landmark that was half tall grassy hill, and half cliff.

It was in fact the same hill where Rainbow had taken me before to master gliding after moving back to the modest town. On her instruction, I would fan my wings out and carefully make my way down the hillside with my hooves a good foot or two in the air the whole way. If my hooves touched anything but the top of the hill or the base, she would shout jibes or challenges at me until I tried again. While using my pride in my ability to run away against me was effective, it didn't really endear her to me.

"Pdthhpt!" I spat as I tore away some debris and some small grey feathers from my wing. My right foreleg drew across my muzzle to clean it off before moving to point at the two chaperones we had picked up. "If we're here for me, then what are they doing here?"

Twilight Sparkle, and her personal assistant Spike, had arrived on the top of the hill only a few minutes into my preening, and quickly set up what looked to be a small picnic site but with stacks of books and paper in place of food. Twilight eagerly waved a foreleg towards me at my gesture, while Spike merely dug around in a small bag at his feet.

"Twilight only got her wings yesterday," I scolded Rainbow, who seemed only mildly interested that we had a small audience. "I don't mind going through a few more gliding exercises, but give her a little time to get used to them at the very least."

"Don't worry, Harry," Twilight offered and snatched up some paper and a quill with her magic. "I'm just here to take notes. Usually it takes weeks or even months for newborn pegasi foals to learn how to use their wings in the most basic ways. I'm curious to see how a grown pony deals with the learning process."

I grumbled slightly at the idea of being a test subject, but didn't challenge her desire to analyze such an alien situation. Instead I shot a quirked eyebrow at the small dragon which had just snatched a small ruby from his bag.

Spike met my gaze and let out a small laugh. "You kidding? I'd pay good money to watch Rainbow go drill instructor. That business with her shooting water into Cloudsdale was hilarious."

A small growl rose in my throat but didn't quite travel far enough to let the dragon hear my displeasure. Twilight stood in for me however and shot a disapproving glare down at her assistant and _thwaped_ him once on the back of his head with one of her new wings.

"I'll get to her in due time," Rainbow stated and waved a dismissive hoof at Twilight, though not before offering Spike a small smile at his remark. She took a short moment to look over the rest of my preening work, and after a short grunt of approval, Rainbow turned to stride over to the cliff's edge. "Come here Harry, I want to show you something."

I spat out the last little bit of fluff that clung to my muzzle and hesitantly followed after her. In the long stretch of land beyond the cliff, Ponyville's residents hustled and bustled about their happy little lives. I could just make out some of the individual ponies dragging carts through the town square. Off to one side, in the clearing adjacent to Fluttershy's cottage, was the skeleton of our Silver Knight's headquarters under construction. Even from this distance and at such an early stage of construction, it was still clearly being done up as a smaller version of Canterlot castle, minus the pristine marble. The portion of the town closest to Rainbow's hill were the gargantuan fields of Apple family apple trees. It was all very small from that hill, it was hard not a feel a certain giddiness at looking down over it all.

"You see all of that?" Rainbow asked and swept a blue foreleg across the scene. "All pegasi see the world like this. The freedom our wings give us is an important part of all pegasi, and is crucial to our way of life. If you want the respect of the Silver Knight pegasi, it has to be important to you to."

I quirked an eyebrow at the mare and paused for a good second or two at the unexpected speech. "Rainbow, that was… oddly poetic of you."

Rainbow merely shrugged and turned around to trot away from the cliff edge. "Everypony has to be passionate about something. You eggheads have your magic, I've got flying."

_And back to normal,_ I chuckled to myself and turned back to survey the relatively small town I called home.

"While that may be, I am unicorn first and pegasus second." The stubborn tone of my voice was undermined somewhat by my wings automatically stretching out beside me, traitorous appendages that they were. "I'm not saying the ability to bolt away from danger in any direction isn't extremely useful, but I'm just going to need to warm up to the idea of being suspended a hundred feet in the sky by nothing but a bed of thin air."

I heard the cyan pegasus let out an exasperated sigh somewhere behind me before asking, "Harry, are you familiar with how momma birds teach their kids to fly?"

"Rainbow, I'm flattered, but I'm not really into roleplay," my mouth replied automatically as my brain was a little preoccupied trying to pinpoint what few of Ponyville's structures I actually knew.

"Well too bad, 'cause Momma's mad," Rainbow almost shouted, and much closer than she was a moment ago.

Immediately after those words met my ears, something hard and felt a lot like a pair of hooves impacted with my flank. I had a brief moment where my head snapped around just in time to see Rainbow's hind legs drop back to the ground from her buck, and a smile that was half smirk half apology. Behind her, Twilight shot up to her hooves, a look of disbelief clear on her face, while Spike was laughing himself silly at his caretaker's hooves. That moment passed soon enough as the force from the blue athlete's buck hurled me forwards over the cliff's edge, and into open air.

A steady and colorful stream of expletives poured from my maw as wind raced past me, whipping my wiry mane about in a frenzy. While my panicked mind was busy trying to apply a lifetime of ground-based instincts to control a freefall, my body overrode control and snapped my long grey wings flat out beside me. My descent slowed dramatically and an interesting tension collected in the joint muscles where the wings met my barrel.

I dared to cast a nervous glance downward, and found the collection of trees crowding Rainbow's hill zipping along behind me, as opposed to racing up towards me. I reflexively tucked all four of my legs against my barrel, streamlining a form and easing what little turbulence the limbs offered. I wasn't moving along very fast, I'd need to actually flap to get more force going, but I was at least stable in the air. I dimly noted that the form my wings defaulted to was the same I used when gliding down the opposite side of the hill, although the ground now was significantly more than two feet from my hooves. However, my attention was quickly drawn from my wings when I distinctly felt the air pressure shift around over me.

Rainbow flew a few feet behind and above me, her slightly smaller wings cutting through the air with practiced ease. A wide smile was stretched across her face and her chest shook with barely repressed laughter. Behind her, a clearly panicking Twilight danced at the edge of the cliff we had just abandoned, her lavender wings fluttered about her as though she was unsure if she should run for help or jump and see if she could follow after us. Thankfully she chose option 'C' and levitated a length of parchment over and began scribbling on it with her quill.

"Pretty good form, Newbie," Rainbow jested, her head cocked to one side as she inspected me. "Though you may want to flap your wings, the goal here is to actually fly not just glide."

My throat nearly tore as a solid wave of panic and adrenaline hit my system like a wrecking ball. "I WILL SEND YOU TO TARTARUS MYSELF!"

I was understandably irritated.

Rainbow's smile grew just a little bit and her eyes narrowed, giving her a supremely smug look. "So you're saying you don't want me to show you how to land?"

That shut me up. I chewed on my lower lip and tried to analyze how I might be able to both land safely and wreak untold vengeance upon Rainbow. After a few seconds of fruitless brainstorming I hung my head in defeat, it also didn't help that the muscles of my wings were starting to ache. My anger towards Rainbow abated slightly and turned into a begrudging respect.

"I suppose I could be persuaded to accept a truce."

"Just follow me and try to do exactly as I do," Rainbow chuckled and sped forward to position herself a couple of feet in front of me. "There's a clearing in Sweet Apple Acres that I use a lot."

Operating under the assumption that a hundred feet off the ground wasn't the place to be confrontational, I watched Rainbow carefully and tried my best to emulate her. My wings folded against my barrel for a split second before arcing up in the air and flapping back down as we both gained altitude over the trees below. My right wing angled upwards while my left lowered to allow me to bank left towards the rapidly approaching field of apple-laden trees. Ahead of me, Rainbow flipped up in a small loop-the-loop, which left me going off in a small spiral before I could stabilize myself. I wasn't very graceful, but it was exhilarating nonetheless.

I had always been a guy that loved to unwind by going out for a long jog. Too many people forget the simple joy that we all had as kids running around as fast as we could. I took great pride in being able to outrun, or at the very least, avoid most any supernatural baddie, wizard, or Girl Scout troop that came knocking at my door. Flying was another ballgame entirely. The wind was rushing past my face so much faster than it ever had on the ground, and the ability to move in three dimensions as opposed to two just magnified the whole experience. The weariness of my untrained wing muscles faded to the back of my mind as a resurgence of adrenaline entered my system and I shot forward through the air. My irritation with the competitive pegasus evaporated as I gained a new appreciation for her craft.

"Whoa hey hold up a second, Dresden!" Rainbow cried as we crossed into the apple farm and neared a small clearing in the trees. "Something's off."

Rainbow came to a halt and hovered a good dozen feet or so over the apple trees below us. I flared open my wings and beat them about in a clumsy imitation of Rainbow's smooth halt, but still managed to bring myself to a successful hover beside her. My wings were truly burning now, the basic flight drills I had just gone through had done their number on me and the feathered limbs were eager to let me know that fact. Despite the aches however, I could feel the air shifting about my fur and feathers again. It felt similar to the air pressure change when Rainbow flew up behind me, except it seemed to come from everywhere at once. While this was little more than an odd curiosity to my inexperienced mind, the sudden shift meant much more to Rainbow.

"Oh pony feathers, it's a gust!" Rainbow craned her head around until her wide eyes found me. "Harry, quick, you need to op-"

Whatever she was going to say next was lost to my ears as a Canterlot-sized pillow of wind impacted with the two of us and sent us spiraling out of the sky. Rainbow, with her years of flight expertise and training, took control of the gust and rode it up into the sky. Her wings stretched out as far as possible without flapping and caught all the air she could while gracefully soaring the sky like a kite on a breeze. I had no such skill.

Instead I fell back on my practiced wizard instincts of matching force with force. Once faced with the gust of wind, I flapped my tired wings as hard as I possibly could. Almost immediately the grey feathered limbs told me this was a bad idea and burned with the strain to keep me airborne. In only a few seconds my wings lost their strength and folded themselves against my barrel, despite my frantic commands to keep beating.

"I blame you, Rainbow!" I shouted into the air as gravity retook control of my body and hurled me towards the apple trees below.

Power surged through my horn, and through the silver shield charm at the base. Half a breath later a semi-large sphere of swirling red energy popped into existence around me. I hit the treetops like a great red cannonball, and with roughly the same effect. Tree limbs and apples shattered against my shield, leaving an interesting trail of splinters and mush in my wake. Thankfully I managed to avoid any of the tree trunks that might have otherwise sent me ricocheting around and instead just hit the ground with a resounding _thwump_.

"Ooooww," I groaned from within my newly made crater.

The aura of red around me dispersed and I shakily crawled my way out of my crash site, several of my joints popping in the process. I swept my head around to survey whatever damage I caused, and was pleasantly surprised to find a lack of my usual property damage. There was a sizable hole in one of the tree tops I had crashed through and a significant amount of shredded plant matter around me, but none of the trees were uprooted and there was absolutely no fire. All in all, it was one of my better accidents.

"Oh my goodness, are you okay mister?!" cried a very high pitched southern drawl from right behind me.

I quickly spun around, and was faced with something I wasn't really wholly prepared for. Three little fillies stood only a few feet away, each with a look of complete astonishment on their faces. One was a yellow earth pony with a large red bowtie holding back her equally red mane. Another was pure white unicorn who wore a curly mane of pink and purple. The last was an orange pegasus with a deep purple mane set in a ragged style similar to the pony that had bucked me off a cliff. One thing that these fillies shared however, was that each of them were void of their cutie marks.

"Applebloom," I muttered, more to myself than anypony else, and point a hoof at each filly in turn, "Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, right? My friends told me a bit about you three."

Each of the little fillies' eyes somehow got even wider as my hoof swept over them, their pupils taking up significantly more of their faces than should be physically possible. Applejack's little sister was the first to break out of her stunned stupor and practically exploded like a little ball of excitement.

"You're that new prince fella that moved into the library!" Applebloom exclaimed and bounced on her hooves, followed quickly by her friends.

"Were you just flying with Rainbow Dash?"

"Are you Twilight's special somepony?"

"I heard you fought off a bunch of monsters! Did that really happen?"

"Were you really just flying with Rainbow Dash?"

An extreme unease swept over me as the fillies advanced on me, firing question after personal question. My hooves automatically backpedaled me away from the foals, right up until my flank hit the same tree I crashed through mere moments ago. The girls apparently lacked any and all ability to read body language and just pressed forward until they surrounded me, their wide expectant eyes staring up at me.

_What's going on?! I just wanted to say hi! _I inwardly screamed and quickly began looking for possible escape routes. _Don't know how to pull off Twilight's teleport yet, maybe I could try to fly away?_

That particular thought was banished from my mind when Scootaloo reached out a hoof and pulled at one of my very sore wings in an effort to inspect it. "Do you fly a lot or just walk everywhere?"

_There is no escape. I am doomed,_ I concluded solemnly and resigned myself to endure their questioning. My only hope was that my tiny captors would exhaust themselves quickly. _I still blame Rainbow for this._

Several heavy and echoing hoof beats thundered over the fillies' questions, silencing them and drawing our collective gazes back over towards where the foals originally came from. A truly gargantuan example of an earth pony crunched his way over to us and stopped short a few feet away. In terms of build he easily matched some of the heavier armored ponies I had come in contact with in Equestria's military. Although judging by his large apple cutie mark, deep red coat and orange mane, and the work horse collar around his neck, he earned his physique slightly differently than the soldiers and guardsponies.

"Girls," the titan of a pony said, soft enough to not be angry, but loud enough so that it couldn't be mistaken as anything but a command. "Manners."

The three fillies immediately backed off and retreated to stand by the red stallion and spoke in almost complete unison, "Sorry, Big Mac."

With that done, Applejack's elder brother turned to cast his steady gaze over the pony that was held captive by his youngest sister and her friends. If he was surprised by my presence, he didn't really show it. His eyes stopped for a fraction of a second longer on my wings than the rest of me, but moved on quickly enough until he drank in whatever details about me he felt he needed. Without saying a word, Big Mac broke his study of me to point his muzzle upward. I followed his gaze until we were both staring at the small hole in the branches I created while "landing", through which I could vaguely make out a blue blur somewhere off in the distance.

"Yeah," I groaned and sheepishly rubbed my forelegs together, a sudden feeling of genuine guilt washing over me. "I'm sorry about that, beginner flyer and all. I can repay you for the, uhh, tree."

"Nnope." Big Mac shook his head slightly and shot me a small smile. His eyes traced back over my various cuts, bruises, and very disheveled wings, a look of concern growing on his face. "You okay?"

"I'm alright, really. My pride just took a bit of a beating." I shot another glance upward and dimly noted that Rainbow's blur was getting closer.

My ears automatically swiveled to focus on the blue comet. While still very far away, I'm fairly certain I could hear a mare pleading with herself, "Oh please don't be dead. Please don't be dead." Almost immediately, my mischievous side reared its head and whispered into my ear.

"Hey, would you guys mind if I asked for a favor?" I asked a little bit louder than I probably needed to in order to drown out Rainbow.

"Of course!" Applebloom practically shouted and jumped back in front her brother, followed quickly by her friends. All three of the fillies adopted a saluting stance very similar to the guardsponies I had encountered thus far. "The Cutie Mark Crusaders are at your service!"

Big Mac and I exchanged a quick look, after which he just chuckled and nodded his head toward the fillies by his hooves. While enjoying my own good natured laugh, I decided to humor Applebloom and her friends and stood up to my full height, as though I were about to address my Silver Knights.

"There's a large hill in that direction," I nodded my head in the direction of where I originally met up with Rainbow Dash and Twilight. "It has a large cliff on one side of it. I'm still learning the pathways around here and would appreciate a guide back to the hill. I'd prefer to stay under the canopy as well."

"You got it!" Scootaloo cried out and bolted past us, laughing while she galloped.

Both Applebloom and Sweetie Belle took off after her, one of them laughing along with the young pegasus while the other shouted at the top of her voice, "Wait up, Sootaloo! Don't get too far ahead, he needs to see to follow us!"

I let out a small sigh and began trotting after the overexcited foals while simultaneously running waves of force over my disheveled wings. The feathered limbs stretched and flexed out beside me automatically as I straightened them out. Big Mac quickly fell in line beside me and kept pace, more likely to keep an eye on his sister than anything else.

Once we started moving, Big Mac shot a glance upward at the leaves blocking our view from the sky and then back towards the my crash site. Even with the laughter of the Cutie Mark Crusaders ringing ahead of us, Rainbow Dash's distant shouting could still be heard as she searched for me. Mac let out a low rolling chuckle and offered me a small knowing smile.

"What?" I feigned innocence to his unspoken accusation. "I need to get back to that hill and keep cool at the same time, shade is good for that."

He grunted and turned his attention to the three bouncing fillies leading our way.

"Hey, you're the guy that makes that cider the princesses special order right?" I asked, a sudden thought springing to mind.

"Eeyup." Big Mac held his head a little higher.

"Why don't you bring by some of your cider by the library later? I could call over Pinkie, and by extension the rest of my friends, and make a night of it."

Mac thought over the offer for a few seconds before smiling and grunting in the affirmative.

"This ought to be interesting," I laughed and hurried after the retreating tails of Applebloom and her friends. My aching wings brought to mind one more important question. "How do you feel about serving your brew cold?"

His only response was to snort angrily and stomp his hooves on the ground a little harder as we moved.

"Alright, alright," I said with a placating gesture of my wings. "I can take a hint."

Somewhere far behind us, Rainbow Dash's piercing voice cried out over the treetops, "Where the heck are you?!"

"How long do you think until Rainbow realizes I wasn't vaporized by a thirty foot fall?"

"A while." Big Mac let out a thoughtful grumble before adding, "Determined, that one."

"If she takes more than an hour or two, set aside a small personal barrel of cider for her." I cringed slightly at what Rainbow might do to one up her momma bird stunt. "I'd prefer not to have her too angry with me. I'll cover whatever amount of bits you need."

Bic Mac's laconic grunt of approval, was undercut slightly by what I could only assume was Rainbow diving in and out of the distant treetops like a dolphin in the ocean. I enjoyed my simple revenge and just continued following the trail of laughing children in front of me, and fleeing from the panicking Rainbow Dash behind us.


End file.
